Your Worst Enemy​—Is It You?

NEIGHBORS called Peter a “nice guy . . . who was hooked on running and playing tennis.” A mere 33 years old, he could already boast a prestigious job and acclaim as an amateur athlete. But one morning he strangled his father. The provocation? According to the Daily News, Peter shouted, “The Devil made me do this!”

Criminals invoking the Devil-made-me-do-it alibi, however, often find themselves being rushed off for psychiatric examination rather than gaining acquittal. And in some circles merely expressing belief in the Devil is enough to bring one’s sanity into question. ‘A shadowy figure who runs around promoting murder and mayhem? Ridiculous!’ say many. A bit more palatable, perhaps, is the notion that the Devil is just a symbol of the evil in man himself.

Imperfect man, to be sure, does have an evil side. “The inclination of the heart of man is bad from his youth up,” says the Bible. (Genesis 8:21) But decades of research by psychologists to find ‘the Devil within’ have produced little more than conflicting theories, often riddled with inconsistencies and problems. (See box.)

Take, for example, those who attribute human violence to our supposed evolutionary inheritance from animals. In his book The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, Erich Fromm argues that, contrary to popular opinion, violence is not an animal’s sole response to danger: “The impulse to flee plays . . . the same if not a larger role in animal behavior than the impulse to fight.” So even if one were to accept the problem-filled theory of evolution, the concept of man as an innately violent animal is suspect. But if man is not his own worst enemy, then who is?

[Box on page 3]

The Search for ‘the Devil Within’

Many have been the attempts to prove that man alone is the source of evil. Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud saw man as driven by powerful life-and-death instincts. Freud’s former collaborator Carl Jung, however, saw the “Devil” in man as a “shadow” or animallike personality that emerges when man tries to repress his evil side. Konrad Lorenz said that aggression is innate, a leftover of man’s evolutionary past. Many biologists feel that genetic or organic abnormalities might be the triggers of human violence. Complicating the picture even further are those who say that nurture​—not nature—​is responsible for ‘the Devil’ in man. By this, behaviorists mean that environmental factors, such as family and friends, produce evil.